


Under the Ice

by CountDorku



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Adora Was Never In The Horde, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Enemies to Lovers, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:34:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27644870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CountDorku/pseuds/CountDorku
Summary: Catra, elite agent of the Horde, has taken Perfuma prisoner. However, when her skimmer crashes in an isolated region of the Kingdom of Snows, she and her captive need to work together if they're going to make it to shelter before nightfall!AU where Adora was raised in Dryl.
Relationships: Catra & Shadow Weaver | Light Spinner (She-Ra), Catra/Perfuma (She-Ra)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 26





	Under the Ice

**Author's Note:**

> So this is from an AU I may never actually write anything else in because [looks at other AUs] ahaha anyway
> 
> Points of divergence:  
> * Adora's portal opens in Dryl instead; she and Entrapta see each other as, basically, sisters.  
> * Catra is Shadow Weaver's "favourite", a role in which she desperately attempts to live up to an impossible standard of perfection in order to earn scraps of poisoned affection.
> 
> The story picks up almost immediately after Catra attacks the Princess Alliance delegation to the Kingdom of Snows and captures Perfuma.

“Are you awake?”

Catra groaned and opened her eyes. In front of her was the ceiling of her skimmer; a slash of blue was carved into it somehow. There should be an overlay from her helmet HUD telling her why, but it hadn’t materialised.

Her left wrist was throbbing, a scarlet dot of suffering; there were the twinges of minor injuries dotted across the rest of her body. She overruled the pain. Pain was nothing; pain was the enemy. If she gave in to it, there would only be more pain later.

After a few moments, she realised that her helmet didn’t have anything to say because she wasn’t wearing it, and the rest of her brain came online.

She leaped to her feet, grabbing the speaker and slamming her up against the wall. She snarled, “What did you do with my helmet, prisoner?”

Her captive went slightly pale. The girl had a tanned, freckled face looking out through the tiny gap in her cold-weather gear. “I had to take it off to check your vitals, make sure you were still alive after the crash.”

“You’re a rebel. Why would you care?”

Perfuma looked at her sadly and said, “Is that really what the Horde tells you? That we don’t care about life?”

“Yes.”

“Of course they would.” Perfuma gestured to one side. “I put your helmet down there.”

Scowling, Catra released the Plumerian and picked up the helmet in both hands. She couldn’t quite suppress the wince-

“You’re hurt,” Perfuma said.

“It’s nothing.”

“You’re in _pain_.”

“Pain is nothing; pain is the enemy,” recited Catra.

Perfuma gave her an odd look. “Pain is your body telling you it needs to be taken care of. Give me a look.” She reached out-

Catra instinctively drew back, sheltering her wrist. A hiss escaped her throat, a sound of mingled pain and anger. She despised every second of the motion – those instincts were a weakness that an enemy might exploit – but it had escaped already.

“If I wanted to hurt you,” said Perfuma patiently, “I could have done it while you were unconscious. If your wrist is injured, it’ll need first aid or it could be permanently damaged.”

Catra’s brain ran the numbers on this. On the one hand, showing this kind of weakness to a rebel was a major failure, especially when that rebel had been in the onboard cell until it had apparently stopped working. On the other hand, and its wrist that was really starting to hurt, _showing_ weakness, that she would later be able to leave behind, was preferable to actually being weakened.

Slowly, reluctantly, she held out her wrist and opened the buckles holding on the armour.

Perfuma studied it carefully, her lips pursed as she concentrated. “Only a sprain. Good.” She reached out-

Catra couldn’t believe that she hadn’t noticed the spar of ice jutting through a gash in the side of the wrecked skimmer until now. She must have been hit harder than she thought.

“We need to hold this ice pack to your wrist for a little while,” Perfuma explained as she broke a chunk off the spar. “Is there any fabric on board?”

“Spare uniform in the locker,” grated Catra.

* * *

The pain was starting to dull as Catra pulled her helmet back on. Perfuma had torn some strips off the uniform and used them to form an improvised compression bandage, holding some cloth-wrapped ice in place.

Perfuma shivered. “We can’t stay here. We need to get to proper shelter before nightfall.”

With her uninjured hand, Catra shifted the controls on the side of the helmet until it brought up the map. “Closest settlement is about two hours’ march east. It’s 1422 hours. If we move out now, we should be able to reach it by nightfall.”

“There won’t be anyone there,” pointed out Perfuma. “The Springlands are deserted in winter; all the farmers move to the caverns below Winterheart.”

“There should be a communications hub there, at least. We can call the Horde for pickup.”

* * *

As they stepped out of the skimmer, the cold hit Catra like a hammer before her armour automatically compensated. Studying the wreck, she made a mental note: the icing problem of Horde skimmers hadn’t been fixed nearly as well as the engineers had said it was.

She turned to Perfuma, who was picking up some of the torn metal, and demanded, “What are you doing?”

“Leaving a trail.” The Plumerian stepped back; she’d assembled a few long pieces of torn structure into an arrow pointing north. “If our friends see this, they’ll know where to look for us.”

“I don’t have friends,” Catra said bluntly. “Friends are a distraction.”

“Do you have a canned rejection of everything worthwhile in life?”

Catra wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Finally, she said, “The settlement is slightly to the left of due east.”

“Thank you,” said Perfuma, and moved the pieces of metal slightly.

* * *

The Springlands, Catra recalled from the briefing, had their name because they were habitable only after the spring thaw. Parts of it remained frozen – the Kingdom of Snows was accurately named – but there would be meadows, places for herds to graze and crops to grow.

At the moment, however, there was nothing but ice.

The falling snow was light and powdery, but the thick, dark band of clouds on the horizon told of a blizzard on the way.

She turned to Perfuma and barked, “Move faster.”

“I’ll try.” Perfuma set her jaw and began to move.

* * *

This part of the Springlands was far from the frozen meadows that would have made for easy travel. Rather, they appeared to be moving through the foothills as they drew closer to the great mountains of Winterheart.

“So, what’s your name?” asked Perfuma, and Catra scowled.

“Why do you care?”

“If we’re going to be travelling together, I’d like to know more about you.”

“We are not _travelling together_ ,” snapped Catra. “You are my prisoner.”

“I didn’t introduce myself, did I? My name is Perfuma-”

“I know who you are, princess. You were identified in the briefing.”

Perfuma

As Catra stepped forward, the ice underfoot gave way, and Catra spat a curse as she desperately grabbed at the ledge.

It appeared that there had been a thin layer of ice over a fragile, unstable rocky surface, and that had proved unable to handle Catra’s weight; whether her armour had played a role, or it just hadn’t been stable enough anyway, was irrelevant at this point.

Catra tried to reach up, grab at something, but with her wrist injured, she couldn’t get enough leverage. She heard a snap as the thin sheets of torn fabric, worn down by being rubbed against the rock, gave way.

“Just hold on! I’ll try to get you up!”

That didn’t make sense. All Perfuma had to do was let Catra fall, and she’d be free, the Horde would have lost one of its greatest weapons, and she could just head to the settlement Catra had already foolishly directed her to. Besides, the Plumerian was built like her entire body was made of twigs; nothing in the briefing had indicated that she’d have the strength to pull Catra out of trouble –

There was a rumble, a crack of breaking ice, and enormous vines reached down and seized Catra by the waist, lifting her up.

Oh, yeah.

“How did you find a plant in these conditions?” she asked, as Perfuma wrapped a length of vine around her injured wrist. An incongruously cheery yellow flower looked at her.

“There were buried seeds. They dig in to wait out the winter, then sprout when the ice thaws.” Catra could make out the slightest hint of a smile under Perfuma’s hood. “Life and beauty are there, under the ice. You just need to nurture it, help it grow.”

Catra jerked her head towards what looked like the real path. “Let’s keep moving.”

* * *

“Tell me something,” ordered Catra. “Those vines…why didn’t you use them earlier? You could have easily overpowered me if you chose the right moment.”

“Would it have helped?”

That didn’t make sense. “You would have been freed from captivity.”

“In the middle of the ice.” Perfuma shook her head. “I try not to hurt people without reason.”

“I am Horde. Is that not reason enough?”

“You really don’t know anything about us, do you? Only the propaganda you’ve been fed.”

Catra felt herself growing angry. Anger was usually helpful, it was one of her greatest weapons, but this felt…wrong, somehow. “Be quiet,” she demanded, her stun prod appearing in her hand.

“You asked.”

“BE QUIET!”

Silence fell.

The snow intensified. The blizzard was approaching quickly.

* * *

The light was fading fast as Catra’s HUD showed the outlines of buildings: blocky, huddled structures, as if even the walls were sheltering against the cold.

She shook her head. Foolish sentimentality.

She tweaked her helmet settings so that her left eye was getting thermal vision. Perfuma, even in her thick, insulating clothes, stood out like a beacon of light in the closing darkness, fuelled by her body’s warmth.

Neither her thermal vision nor her natural eyesight caught the beast before it burst out of a snowbank and hurled the Plumerian to the ground with one swipe of its mighty claw.

Catra began reciting every swear word she knew in alphabetical order as she drew her stun prod. These had been covered in survival training: ursarcta. Frost bears. They had a freezing natural body temperature and natural thermal vision; they’d hibernate in a snowdrift for months, then either retreat into Winterheart with the coming of summer or catch any of the prey animals that eked out a living in the Springlands while they weren’t living up to their names. They were reputedly able to put up a decent fight against a Horde battle tank.

She couldn’t let it take the prisoner.

She dove in, jabbing at the beast’s enormous claws with her stun prod. It mostly seemed to annoy it, but that could be useful. She danced around its strikes, jabbing with the stun prod-

A claw came out of nowhere and hurled her to the ground. Of course, she should have reset her helmet; obviously this thing would be invisible on thermal. It loomed over her, jaws opening wide. She could see the vast teeth, icicles as cold and sharp as death.

“Go back to sleep,” she said, and shoved the stun prod into the frost bear’s mouth.

As it collapsed in a heap, Catra bent to pick up the form of Perfuma. The Princess of Plumeria was out cold, her clothes torn, the slightest hint of a claw injury on her cheek; it looked like the impact with the cold, hard ground had knocked her out, not

The blizzard was intensifying, and the settlement was close. She hefted Perfuma in a fireman’s carry and muttered, “Princess? Hold on. I’m going to get you to shelter.” She thought for a moment. The princess had wanted to know her name; maybe that would help keep her alive. “Catra. My name is Catra.”

* * *

Catra forced open the door and bundled the unconscious princess into the building. This was a communications building, at least - a hub linking the settlement to the rest of the world.

She could call the Horde. They’d sweep down in the morning, take her back home and drag the princess back in chains.

That was her mission: bring back a princess, get some intel on this “She-Ra”. And she had to complete her mission.

Didn’t she?

She reached for the transmitter, and her wrist twinged. Looking at it, she saw that the vines were starting to fade, but the flower was as vibrant as it had been originally; how it had survived the killing cold, she’d never know.

 _Life and beauty are there, under the ice_ , Perfuma had said. _You just need to nurture it._

* * *

“Perfuma? Are you awake?”

Perfuma groaned and opened her eyes. The familiar face of Bow was there to meet her, with more familiar faces a little further back: Mermista trying hard not to look like she cared, Adora smiling warmly, Adora’s foster sister Entrapta fiddling with something technical, Glimmer looking suspicious.

“Did you see my arrow?” she said woozily.

“No, we found you because we got a transmission.” Bow shrugged. “We didn’t recognise the voice, but it went on long enough for us to triangulate your location. Said that we’d find you in the central building, with the communications antennae, and not to look in any of the other buildings or damage the transmitter. Not that we were going to do the second one anyway. How are you feeling?”

“Like I got hit by a bear.” That earned a little bit of a smile from Mermista. “I managed to talk to that elite Horde trooper who’s been following us.”

“Oh?” Glimmer seemed to wake up a bit at that. “What did you learn?”

“Not much. She doesn’t have any friends. She doesn’t want anyone to think of her as weak. And…I think she said her name was Catra.”

* * *

Catra stalked out of Shadow Weaver’s office, rubbing the scorch mark on her still-injured wrist.

Shadow Weaver had been comparatively reasonable. Sure, the mission was a failure, and obviously she’d needed to face some consequences for that. However, the intel about the condition of the Horde skimmers had at least been worth some points; if they could lick that icing problem, they could go for a full invasion of the Kingdom of Snows, which had proved resistant to most Horde attacks due to the combination of superior terrain and a strong military.

She made for her lodgings – a small room, barely more than a sleeping cubicle, but it was hers, not part of assigned group lodgings. Being Shadow Weaver’s favourite had perks, at least, even if the expectations were very high to go with it.

With a peek over her shoulder to make sure that nobody saw, Catra slid open the panel to reveal her keepsakes. She’d discovered this concealed recess in the wall while checking over her assigned sleeping cubicle for anything surprising; it would be just like Shadow Weaver to give her star pupil a reward for her achievements and then fit it with an electro-mine or something as a lesson about trusting too much.

A mask, issued to her by Shadow Weaver after a particularly good training mission – the first thing her mentor had ever given her that wasn’t just standard issue. It was scuffed and scorched from countless training battles. She didn’t use it now, though; her helmet was too important.

A damaged stun prod. That had been the hardest fight she’d had in boot camp. Octavia had been a head taller than her, and with a much broader build, _and_ she’d been issued with a weapon while Catra hadn’t. Somehow, she’d managed to get the weapon off Octavia and jam it into the larger cadet’s eye for the victory.

As she put the flower in there, its pink petals already beginning to dull and fade, some part of her mused that this was the only keepsake she had that she hadn’t won in battle.


End file.
